The Lifters

May 05, 2018

lifters

I'm very excited to have illustrated Dave Egger's new YA book

The Lifters


With illustration work I've done in the past, I would never be in contact with the author. But working with Dave on this project was very different. We were in phone contact almost every day I was drawing it. 

Initially he wanted me to draw the whole book in ink, like Walker Bean, but I had recently been doing more and more drawings with pencil, and I wanted to give it a try. He was up for anything. So I sent him this proposal drawing:
followingearly

He liked it, but he wanted it to feel less like a comic. He also had the idea that the faces in the book would be mostly obscured, or in silhouette, an idea I really liked. 

So I sent him this:

zoom

He showed it to Knopf, and then I got the go ahead to continue. 

In the end the illustration ended up looking a little more realistically proportioned...

final 
Here are the two main characters zoomed in a little.

Gran:
 gran

and Catalina:
canalita

I hope the book does really well. I loved it before I added my drawings to it. I only hope my illustrations add a sort of sooty depth to Dave's story, and help some reluctant readers enter its world, and see the magic for themselves. 

colors

Also I just wanted to point out that on my first read, I read the description of Ruth Ginsberg as what Catalina looked like. I hadn’t read the book yet, and was fishing through scenes for descriptions. I find it pretty funny.

Aaron Renier
 





 
 
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